Trump’s New Donors Confirm His Populist Politics Were a Charade

You know Donald Trump has lost that anti-establishment new car smell when his campaign is asking Karl Rove for advice. The famous architect of George W. Bush’s campaign and founder of the $100 million super PAC American Crossroads is now reportedly helping Brad Parscale build a high-value fund-raising network to raise money from wealthy Republican donors—including lobbyists, billionaires, and old-school establishment power brokers. According to The New York Times, Rove’s involvement is part of a larger effort by the Trump campaign to embrace the G.O.P. elites the president professed to shun in 2015. Over the past two months, Vice President Mike Pence quietly raised $6 million from wealthy donors in closed-door meetings, and on Tuesday, 200 bundlers will gather at the Trump International Hotel in D.C. to coordinate fund-raising efforts with the Trump campaign, represented by Parscale and Pence. The campaign has also reportedly begun to plot a return to the proverbial rubber-chicken circuit, with donors who raise the most awarded special lapel pins ($25,000), conference calls with Republican leaders ($45,000), and access to campaign events ($100,000 or more).

The dissonance here is obvious. But there are plenty of reasons for Trump to embrace the Republican establishment, which he will need to fund a brutal re-election campaign, take back the House, and buoy his persistently low approval ratings. (One cannot win with the base alone.) More surprising, perhaps, the establishment is hugging Trump back. In addition to Rove, who once privately called Trump “graceless and divisive,” other billionaires in the Trump money game include former Trump critics such as Todd Ricketts, the Chicago Cubs owner who donated to an anti-Trump super PAC. “I’ve seen heavy momentum from Bush, Romney, and McCain people who are all circling up with the president because they want to be on board and have influence with the administration,” George Seay, a Dallas investor and former Rick Perry financier, told the Times. “There’s a huge trove of people who want to be ambassadors, and they’re all going to belly up to the bar, so to speak.” So: maybe not that surprising, after all.

The grassroots that supported Trump in 2016 doesn’t seem to mind. Given his monster fund-raising numbers from the first quarter of 2019 ($30.3 million, with an average donation of $34.26, more than Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris combined), there’s no sign that Trump is in danger of turning off voters who appreciated his “outsider” shtick in 2016. In theory, then, Trump can have it both ways, raking in small-donor support while dipping into the pockets of wealthy Republicans suddenly terrified by an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-style future.

For them, Trump’s reliably conservative orientation justifies the headaches. Even with his tendency to obstruct justice, shut down governments, and wrench children from their parents, Trump has given Republicans the things they want—massive corporate and personal income tax cuts, conservative judges, rapid deregulation—all while overseeing a relatively healthy economy. “Candidly, the Democrats have positioned themselves to be the gift that keeps on giving,” Republican consultant Richard Hohlt told the Times. “With their debates, every month, starting in June, it will be the gift that keeps on giving in steroids.” With Sanders and his would-be imitators scrambling to support the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, free college, and all the rest, establishment Republicans have more incentive than ever to climb aboard the “Trump Train”—which, incidentally, is the distinction given to those who bundle at least $25,000, in addition to that special pin.